Chapter 31: Designing A Second Generation Mech In A Virtual Workshop 2
The first part Alto started with was the spine of the mech. While it was a good place to start the term spine was more theoretical than actual since the back of a light mech would open up for the pilot to crawl into it. It still seemed like a good place to start if he wanted to align his design.
Having experience with the mech design made things a little bit easier. He had reviewed the major problems of the mech design and they all had one thing in common, that being the wiring. Unfortunately a lot of wires had been forced into slots where they were supposed to remain untouched.
Alto focused on what he wanted in his mech, he wanted something fast and reliable, he positioned the armour where he knew they should be. He thought of removing weight from the armour plates in anyway he could to increase their speed.
The arms and leg armour plates were impossible to reduce without affecting the functionality of the mech. He noticed that the mech had something that infact slowed it down and that being the huge clumps of metals on the mechs shoulder. These were created by Redshot Enterprise to become shoulder mounted lasers but they were never accepted.
Alto felt that this betrayed the mechs design, it seemed to be more like a striker or assassin not a weaponised type mech. Since the shoulder mounts did not fit his vision for the mech he wanted to make he decided to remove it. His hand movements and intentions were interpreted by the workshop interphase and he sent the should mounted lasers into a trash icon. Without their weight to cause the light mech to sway he would be able to maximise its speed to some extent.
Alto looked at the model after putting them back together, it looked very much like a body suit than an actual mech. He was sure it was much faster than it’s initial design but now it looks anything but durable, if a player were to take it into a battle a few shots would send the mech to the scrap heap.
Alto knew that one of the redeeming qualities for mech above all else was durability. And the original manufacturers of the initial Fenwick-720 had sacrificed durability for functionality.
"No wonder their mechs underperformed in the field." Alto said. He was not making fun of the original designers of the model, with his little knowledge of the current times he knew what he had to do. "I have to change the armour plates for a more durable type."
He initiated the in games mech designer shop from the games interface, he could see multiple icons from weapons to mech pieces to designs. He tapped the icon that said armour plates. Within the game he would have to purchase the model of armour plates he wished to get, such purchases were referred to as licence. It was more like a digital consent on a specific design type.